


The Miracle Year

by dweeblet



Series: Going, Ghosting, Gone [3]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Delusions, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Sequel, Unreliable Narrator, ghost hunger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dweeblet/pseuds/dweeblet
Summary: “I feel like shit,” he finally says. It lacks the slapdash eloquence of a proper existential crisis, but Danny decides he’s kind of over that.
Series: Going, Ghosting, Gone [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1649161
Comments: 18
Kudos: 111





	1. Interrobang Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a wild ride and I'm nervous to finally post, but it's here: Momma's Boy has a sequel now, I guess. (I'll do my best to recap where necessary, but I highly recommend reading that first for context, or this probably won't make too much sense.)
> 
> Be warned that, like its predecessor, this is not a happy story. I hope you enjoy it.

Danny’s dripping mouth stretches in an ersatz grin. “Mom?” He calls into the unlit lab, almost laughing—shrill and manic. “A little help here?” 

His claws screech on sticky wet metal and drag, drag,  _ drag  _ over the dirty-pristine-stained table at his side. The inky dark seems to pulse, rippling with pools of encroaching shadow. His night vision is usually much better than this, and his hackles rise at the vulnerability of near-blindness. It smells like warm iron over the ozone, but he can’t see the source. 

He knows what it is. It makes him sick and dizzy, so thick in the air he can taste it. Endless, nauseating. There is no indulgence here, so why does it seem like there  _ should  _ be? That he should harbor this feverish guilt for something he doesn’t even feel? Warm and thick, but too thin to appeal—he likes his feed-blood cold and caustic—the stink of it induces illness instead. 

He’s Hungry to his bones, but he wants to be gentle. He has to be. (And he is.) That’s why Danny endures the hypnotic-repulsive-blissful-horrible buzz of the portal at his back—he can’t see it, but its glow shines enticingly through the murk, spilling over the edges of the table, frosting his hair and his heavy rubber suit with sickly-beautiful-eerie green light. There is no suitable victim here, no beast or being carrying the ichor he craves, but he wishes there was. His belly aches and growls but he resists it because he needs to prove that he can. 

Except he really, really  _ can’t _ . Danny needs to Eat like everything else alive—he’s not evil for that. The anatomy of his prey doesn’t always allow such a thing, but he really does his best to get it over with quickly. He snaps necks and splits bellies fast, clean, gentle—humane, when he can. There is profound tenderness in his heart and core alike for the little creatures he guts to fill his Hunger, a respect reserved for nothing else.

The chase is thrilling, almost like a game, but once complete they descend into sedate religiosity, all sport forgotten. It’s intimate, to hold something helpless down and watch it comprehend him. No hunt is complete without thanks or apology whispered reverently around the paper skull in his jaws, always crushed swiftly. Painless is an overstatement, but he tries to be merciful when he Eats. It’s grisly, but that’s just nature. Isn’t it?

Not this last time. It was thoughtless to the point of cruelty, profaning that simple, monumental,  _ necessary _ ritual he’d already suffered so much to be at peace with. It’s not fair. He’s not evil yet, but if he wants to stay that way he must endure this and be corrected.

He stomachs the angry reek of ghost-hate and bitter chemicals, lies placid and oh-so patient-anxious-easy-tense on the chilly metal table. Though the straps are phase-proofed, they’re not terribly sturdy. He’s definitely strong enough to break them—easily, even—but he won’t. He waits very very patiently because he wants to be good.

Because he’s not a bad person, is he? He’s just surviving. Making mistakes, yes, but he’s still human. Disjointed and scattered and remade into something different-unified-broken-free, but he was born of humanity. It’s something Precious to him even now. He’s not irredeemable.

“Hey-hey-hey.” An ecto-gun whines in his periphery and he shivers—he’s been shot lots of times, but it never ceases to be overwhelming when he’s faced with it again. He can hear the soft metallic click of the safety turning off near his ear, and Danny smiles even more broadly around his fangs. “Can you help me out?”

Mom is coming to help (hurt!) him. She can excise the Hungry Thing and its ugliness and the snagging sharp edges that stretch his human casing. He told her before that he didn’t want to be unmade, and maybe he doesn’t, but it will be such a  _ relief _ to fit properly in his skin again, absolute and pure and decent again. That will be worth it. He’ll get to tell her she was right all along; she likes that.

It’s all a lie. He’s not happy. He’s not hopeful. Sheepish bemusement settles like a third skin on top of his flesh on top of his ghost, but it doesn’t belong here. He never wanted to lie, but it comes so easy—why now of all times? Why can’t he just tell the truth for once? Danny is afraid.

She’s right there, but he can’t see her face. Blood roars in his ears, eager excitement rising in his chest—it doesn’t matter. She’s here to fix him! He could sing at the warmth of her hands through her gloves when she touches his haggard face and tucks his flaming white hair back behind the long points of his ears. She really loves him, doesn’t she? Like mothers do, unconditionally kind, endlessly patient. Of course she does. He's safe with her.

“Hi, mama!” Her methodical hands unzip his hazmat to the navel, baring a too-long throat and stark black ribs whose shadows pass through the pale film of his skin. “Thank you—” His mouth twists in a snarl. “—for helping me.” His stomach is shriveled and writhing like something  _ moves _ inside it, sucking endlessly inward like a collapsing star, greedy and sick and stealing from the rest of him. Hungry, so wickedly Hungry. He needs it to stop, so he recoups his smile.

Her gloves are cold, motions clinical. It's just like going to the doctor's office! There is nothing wrong with Danny that he can’t fix himself. Doctors help make people better when they're not right, and so will she. He wants to cry, scream, run away, but his body arches into the touch, pliant and beaming. The taste of that humid blood is familiar in his mouth, cooling and drying sticky on his cheerfully tapping claws. This is his mistake— _ only _ his. She won’t be able to heal him, but he can’t tell her that. It would break her heart.

The scalpel-saw-knife-scissor splits him. Danny feels his eyes roll back in his head—is he in pain? He doesn’t know. He is cleansed, burnt, perfected and remade, wreathed in thorns of agony-bliss-suffering-euphoria. His core is on fire and he wants to cry, but he can also feel his aching lips stretched in a cheshire grin—making room for more teeth that fill his mouth and then some—sink through his palate, pierce his tongue—erupt from his throat because they’re  _ inside _ —

He’s made of sensation and flesh and bone and energy. Tangled nerves and spectral silk ribbons, chakras and lymph nodes, larynx, syrinx, gizzard and guts—monstrous, but all too human. The scale of him is measurable only in terms of universes. He is compressed into a tiny black dot on the head of a pin. 

  
He keens, cries, laughs, and  _ Wails _ .


	2. Interrobang I: Day 3

Danny wakes up as quietly as he ever does; no screaming, no tears. Cold sweat pools in the hollow of his throat, his splinted arm itches, and a spark of pain travels along the pulled muscle in his neck. As he untangles his sticky limbs from the bedsheets the shadows resolve into familiar shapes, cast in the dull greenish glow of star stickers like broad daylight. 

Steady heartbeats reach him through the wall, soft beneath the settling house. He counts them, breathes alongside their syncopation, and some of his panic recedes—but it doesn’t disappear. He always feels most strongly in the dead of night, and those feelings are always ugly, so he shies away from them, pushes them back, and invites unreality. 

Sensation becomes blurry as he retreats into his sluggish, stuttering head. This is probably really horribly unhealthy, but Danny doesn’t care. He pulls the numbness around himself like a bedsheet cape.

Cujo, curled in his smaller shape at the foot of the bed, lifts his head and whines. At first Danny ignores him, but icicle whiskers tickle his thigh when Cujo noses him, and he shifts to reassure the dog with a pat between the ears. He sighs, letting his gaze pass over the wall. The posters are monochrome in the dim light, clear and legible but oddly flattened to his nocturnal eyes. Every now and then he can hear cars trundle down the street below the house, but it’s late, so they’re few and far between. Frost draws lazy webbed patterns over the bedroom window. The sky outside is black.

Danny hauls himself to his feet and makes his unsteady way to the threshold. Cujo hops from the bed to follow him, tags jingling when he lands, but Danny waves him off. “Stay, bud.” He can feel eyes burning holes into his back as he retreats, but Cujo does as he’s told.

He phases through the door to keep it from giving him away, soft feet silent on the carpeted landing. The house is quiet, but not unmoving; the heating hums, pipes creak, and the trees outside whisper against the windows. Down below the laundry room, the boiler clatters. Everything is okay, just as it’s meant to be, but the fine hairs on his neck and scalp prickle with distrust. 

Pressure rises beneath his ribs as his restless core revolts, and his sluggish pulse throbs in his ears. His body is an immovable obstacle. His chest aches with every shaky breath and his throat feels stuck together, almost like his windpipe has collapsed. He fights his heavy limbs all the way into the bathroom, where he flicks the light on and startles— 

The face in the mirror doesn’t look like anyone he knows. 

Danny Fenton in pictures is bright. He isn’t much to look at, but he’s likable, comfortable, pleasantly—perfectly nowadays, because he’s so thoroughly curated himself—average. There are photos from his first day of preschool and middle school in the family album like anyone else might have. He’s normal in those pictures, all easygoing slouch and drowsy smiles from the first photo in that book. It’s all normal.

This face— _this face_ and its pooling shadows—it could belong to anyone, but it hardly seems like _his_. It isn’t a friendly face.

Enraptured, he shuffles closer and props his elbows up on the counter. Something in him twists, bulging up against his shield of fragile apathy, but he shoves it down. Clouded with pale film that catches the light, his eyes are too bright and fey, with blanketing cataracts that reflect like silver coins in the dark. His skin is grey and bruised even beneath the warm yellow glow of the inset bulb above the sink. Chemotherapy-thin after the Hungry Thing’s traipse beyond his deepest core, all of his bones are sorely apparent, weeks of weight lost in the space of days thanks to the vengeful appetite of his ghost half.

Speaking charitably, this freak looks like roadkill, or an addict—or otherwise, a dead thing disinterred. A dead _person_ , a shadow or a mockery of whatever terribly normal thing he used to be. Somehow, he’s too human. Danny looks… dreamy; blurred at the edges and pale in the dark, but gut-wrenchingly _regular_ , and all too real. 

“No wonder,” he mumbles, running a hand through his hair. 

It was worse when he first came home— _so much_ worse up in Wisconsin. He hunches over the sink, catching sight of the bony slope of his shoulders in the mirror, and splashes water over his eyes. Lukewarm droplets slide down his nose in a delicate curve. They’re supposed to be cold, but Danny runs hypothermic by default, and they don’t wake him up.

Maybe Maddie is right not to believe in him. 

How could she, he thinks bitterly, when so often he needs to squirm and rearrange himself to just get comfortable in his skin? He tries so hard, but still he’s distorted, never quite right even when he’s perfect. His ghost half should settle again once he’s calm and stable, and he should go back to what passes for normal—but his normal? It isn’t, and it’s only gotten worse; even on good days, his blood is never red.

Maybe it’s all just a peek at what he’s really meant to be and he’s the one in denial. Danny knows he’s not good at self-awareness a lot of the time. He’s so tired he can barely see straight; it would make sense if he’d missed everything. 

Jazz would tell him to stop thinking things like that. He should be kinder to himself, she would say. Positive self-talk works wonders. He should give that a try—he _should_ do a lot of things, but Danny’s never been good at that either. This is stupid and dramatic, he knows, but not being miserable feels like a disservice.

Guilt gnaws at his belly. He spends a long, sickening minute making faces at his reflection, reaching to capture whatever _she_ saw that night. Something almost Danny Fenton but not quite right, overcompensating for some missing broken piece of himself that he just can’t reach. His plodding heart flutters and he runs his tongue over his cracked lips. They taste like dry iron and salt. 

Maybe the scowling makes it worse—Danny tries for a smile, hoping for the haunted face in the mirror to become miraculously familiar, but it comes out wrong. Twitchy and tense, his lips just pull back strangely; it’s a grimace at best. The crescent of his teeth seems to glow in the dark, almost perfect but chipped by little pointed fangs, just small enough not to be noticed unless looked for. He lets his face fall slack, which, vacant and sick, looks almost just as bad. 

What _Vlad_ must have seen, he can’t even imagine—just empty appetite. Something honest in its ugliness, something selfish and stupid that should stop thinking so hard. He’s tired to his bones, weary in a way that sleep can’t fix.

Closing like a fist around his heart, his core throbs like cramp and sends paralyzing shivers down his back. It wants out, but terror wracks him at the mere thought of changing, so he pinballs between restlessness and dread in equal measure. As far as Danny knows, there is no biological imperative for him to switch forms—he’ll be restless and pissy, but it’s not like he hasn’t been cooped up before. Hiding it away definitely won’t kill him, but the thought of that choice being stripped away makes his skin crawl.

Maybe it’s because he knows Maddie would do it in a heartbeat. If she caught him calling on his other half, taking comfort in it, she would steal it from him. He would be trapped, helpless, completely at her mercy. He would be suspended at the edge of the void and deprived of the tools to traverse it. It would be _cruel_.

He hates the way he is right now, but he doesn’t want to change it. There is no doubt in his mind that being anything else would kill him.

If he relieves the pressure—especially if he does it in front of the mirror—will he see something he can’t take back? He knows his ghost has gotten less like his human self with time. His _human_ self has gotten less human with time. He knows it’s natural, just his body’s way of adapting, but part of him still worries. Will he turn into something even worse than dead? Will he be able to turn _back_ again? More importantly, will Maddie know?

Not being able to do it has made him think about it and long for it more than he’s ever done in his life. Danny wants to _fly_. He wants to taste the frost above the clouds and watch tiny cars scurry back and forth like shiny beetles over the roads. He wants to rocket up until he bursts free of the stratosphere and watch the city lights spread out underneath him like sprawling gold constellations. That’s freedom as real as it’ll ever be. Just thinking about it makes him giddy. He reaches for the spot of cold in his chest, second heart hammering.

His core pulls, an icy ocean tugging at his ankles—but Danny hesitates. Considering this at all is stupid and selfish and overall horrifically reckless, if not outright suicidal. He wants the option, intends to guard it jealously, but the idea of _actually_ transforming makes him feel dizzy and sick. 

No matter what, Maddie would find out. She would shoot him again and it wouldn’t matter that he’s her son because she already knows. She _knows_ , he reminds himself. It hits him like a truck all over again and Danny shudders, breath hitching in his throat. Nets and muzzles flash behind his eyes, and he thinks of sleek silver tools and their hot chemical coatings. He thinks of needles and gas and straps and limiters squeezing his neck, heavy metal collars and chains and tiny white rooms to pace like a caged animal. Above all, he remembers the _teeth_ bursting out of him. 

He really needs to get out. Away. Not caged and sick and restless in this house, backed into a corner with the unfinished prey he wishes he’d never begun. He should be far, far away from Vlad after what happened. That would be good. To crawl through Tucker’s window and share the warmth of his bed, even better. To run barefoot into the beckoning night and never come back, best of all.

Seeking repose, he walks through the wall into Jazz’s room.

She hardly even stirs when he creeps up to the bedside. Sleeping on her side with hands folded beneath her head, she looks almost staged, but there’s a haggardness to her. Dark shadows are heavy under her eyes like raccoon markings. Her hair is tangled and just the faintest bit greasy, something she’d never usually allow. The steady rise and fall of her chest is hypnotizing. 

It’s a simple thing, but she’s alive without any complications. There are no caveats or fine print for her. Bitter jealousy tightens his jaw, but it’s faint and far away. Her eyelids flutter in her sleep, lashes casting feathery shadows over the shallow welt on her cheekbone and the slight puffiness of her eyes. The sight of injury upsets him, overwhelming almost everything else with steadfast protectiveness, but Danny finds that his core all but sings to find her safe and at peace.

A fresh wave of guilt prickles down his spine like groping, spidery hands. Danny swallows hard and rubs instinctively at his vulnerable neck. He’s thinking too much and being dramatic again, but he can’t help it. Jazz is beautiful and generous and kind. He whimpers over the lump in his throat, chewing on his fingers to muffle the noise.

She doesn’t deserve this disaster he’s put her through. She kept him fed and safe when he was too weak to do it himself. Who else would do so much to make sense of his fractured, alien mind? He wouldn’t blame anyone who called him a lost cause, but Jazz just refuses to do it. That’s a lot. It’s a heavy thing to carry. 

Danny wouldn’t be able to handle it in her shoes; he would have collapsed under it ages ago. It’s not fair that she feels the need to persist in this when she’s clearly so exhausted. It’s not fair that she lets him squeeze the obligation out of her with guilt and unreciprocated responsibility like a parasite. 

There’s nothing he could even begin to give back to her. Even his company is selfish; he preens her, smoothing her hair, kneading the blankets, making sure she’s tucked in and warm—but these are ugly indulgences. Part of him feels dirty for giving in to them. Some nasty splinter of ghostly compulsion implores him to think of her as _his_ , and not even like she’s property. Like she’s _part_ of him. His town, his people, his family; all extensions of himself.

It’s like Maddie always says—like he is a ghost and ghosts cannot form emotional connections. They just recognize assets. Righteous anger blazes in him at the unfairness of it all, then sputters out just as quickly as it’d come. 

He’s proven how dangerous he is. There is little doubt he’ll prove it again someday. He does everything he can to keep himself in check, but he’s weaker than he wants to be. Maybe the things his parents always said have been true all along—maybe he’s delusional, seeing some funhouse mirror distortion of what’s real. It’s only a matter of time before he does something he can’t take back, something he doesn’t mean. Hasn’t he already? This might just be what happens when he tries to put off the inevitable.

Danny settles at the end of the bed and screws his eyes shut again. Jazz keeps breathing, slow and steady, oblivious to his invasion. He borrows the rhythm of her heartbeat, because his own is unreliable, and curls up inside his head. Sleepy feelings reach him and speak of dreamless rest; he floats alongside her for what seems like a long time, just absorbing the sensation. It satisfies him that at least Jazz can be peaceful, even if it’s only for a little while. 

Time passes. The heavy sky outside slowly pales until bands of watery pink light start to seep through the curtains. It would be smart to get up and sneak back to his room before Jazz wakes, but he doesn’t. He hates being scrutinized, but the attention is good. The recognition is nice. He waits for her to find him, wanting to be held. 

Soon the hot colors of sunrise brighten the room enough for Jazz to stir awake. “Danny,” she eventually says around a yawn, and sits up in slow, stretching increments. She manages to sound scolding even through the obvious daze of sleepiness. “You know you can come under the covers like a regular person, right? I don’t mind.” She sweeps her frizzy hair back behind her ears, head tipping into his periphery. “If you’re gonna make a habit of this, at least be comfortable.”

“It’s not a habit,” he protests into his forearms, almost whining, but his voice is weak beyond its hoarseness. He’s too tired to fight about anything. He shuffles forward a little, resting his chin on his hands, and stares up at her through his bangs like a berated child.

Jazz’s expression softens. “You had another dream,” she murmurs, low and tender, and it isn’t a question. It makes him faintly sick to see that look on her face. She just ruffles his hair, sorting his unruly bedhead with warm, gentle fingers. “It might help you to talk about it, if you want.” 

With that she stands, and the mattress dips a little more deeply beneath him without the balance of her weight. He lets his gaze follow her out of the room, sharp ears catching on the steady rush of her heartbeat and the whisper of her clothes. Her bare feet scuff against the smooth floor of her bedroom, then disappear into the carpet in the hall. This is already routine, he notes. She shouldn’t have to be doing this.

“I can hear you beating yourself up from here,” Jazz calls. The veneer of false humor does less than nothing to veil her concern; it just makes him feel sicker. “Quit it, little brother!”

Danny scowls at her transparency, but does as he’s told. He rolls off the bed and shakes out his stiff legs with a groan, and something pulls painfully in his shoulder when he stretches it, drawing a low hiss through his teeth. Curling up into a little ball for hours at a time is probably something best left to the Danny of two years and a foot of height ago.

“I'll go start some coffee." He massages the crick from his neck and returns to his room, calling Cujo from the bed with a breathy whistle. The puppy hops eagerly up to follow him, untrimmed claws clicking on the hardwood as he scampers around Danny’s feet. 

It’s too quiet, ambush-still in a way that makes his palms itch. A blanket of strange eeriness has settled over the house like an inch of dust. It seems like an empty stage without the usual subdued bustle of newspaper and breakfast at the kitchen table, all the furnishings just props ready to pack up and leave at a moment’s notice; Fentonworks is liminal in the stillness. Even the lab, which rattles and buzzes with activity at all hours of the day and night, has fallen silent. Knowing that Maddie is down there in that silence makes him bristle.

Coffee is easy. He’s not usually very good at domestic things, but he’s pretty sure he could do this one in his sleep. It would probably take enough caffeine to kill a horse before anything actually happened with his superhuman metabolism, but if he drinks enough Danny can psych himself into thinking he’s close to awake. It’s been a comforting ritual since high school started and everything went to hell. 

Cujo's wet nose pokes his calves, chilly kisses quick to follow as Danny crosses the living room into the kitchen. The cool floor feels oddly spongy under his bare feet, deforming like the world has lost some critical integrity wherever he touches it. Looking down, the tile is flat and solid as it’s ever been, marred by faint scuffs and greenish scorch marks, but he still feels unbalanced. 

Just making coffee, he reminds himself. He replaces the filter on autopilot, then reaches for the coffee canister, tracing the gouges in the cabinet with his fingertips. Dad takes it strong, so he heaps the grounds in, fills up the water, and turns it on.

After that, Danny yanks a chair out from the kitchen table and sits, eyes passing idly over the peeling backsplash. Maddie has been meaning to get it replaced for years, but another project always takes precedence in a household like theirs, so it’s been the same nineties pattern for as long as Danny can remember. 

Cujo pants under the table and presses reassuringly against his legs, hitched doggedly to his ankles like a round, furry anchor. The air tastes of burnt fruit and nutty earth, some Columbian blend, but with some effort he can reach the acidic buzz of airborne carbonation wafting up from the lab in the basement. Rubber, metal and hospital-like disinfectant are faint, the motherly perfume of ozone and chocolate even fainter still.

What is she doing down there? He runs his tongue along his teeth, swiping the memory of sweet green blood from his gums. Building a weapon to kill him once and for all, maybe. Fatal hits are only painful inconveniences to something already dead, but Maddie’s smart. If anyone can find a way, it’s her. 

His mouth waters, thin and sour with the promise of sickness, and his stomach turns over. Maybe she’s trying to split him apart like he _told_ her not to—to strip him of his vigor with her nasty stingers and bangsticks and _loud loud hurting_ machines—

“Danny?” A sudden bolt of animal panic has him whipping around before he can realize it’s Jazz—and of _course_ it’s Jazz—coming up beside him. Cujo's teeth close on the hem of his pants and he yanks with all his clumsy might, paws scrabbling on the tile for purchase. The little dog’s counterweight, just a sight too heavy for his apparent small size, is the only thing that saves Danny from toppling out of the chair entirely.

“Shit.” Heart hammering, Danny braces himself with his unsplinted arm on the table and wheezes. He reaches over and gives Cujo an absent scratch on the head, then directs his apologetic gaze towards Jazz. “Sorry,” he mumbles, ears burning. “You startled me.”

She skirts him to pour herself a cup of coffee—he hadn’t noticed it was done, just sat there useless the entire time. “Thinking hard, little brother?” She pulls a carton of light cream from the refrigerator and sniffs it. “You were pretty spaced.” 

Her friendliness is too soft, too reserved. She stirs the cream in and Danny looks away, pressing a hand to his lips as though to cage any incrimination inside; something horrifically stupid will come out if he’s not careful. He sucks idly on his knuckles, picking up salt and soap and bitter flecks of coffee grounds from the creases.

“It’s okay,” Jazz goes on, artificially cheerful. She cradles her mug with both hands against her chest and breathes it in, seeming pleased, if a little preoccupied. “Thanks for the pick-me-up.” 

She leans back against the counter, green eyes dragging on his fingers in his mouth, but doesn’t say anything else. To be fair, it's kind of a gross nervous tic to pick up, but he doesn’t like the idea of stopping. Stupidly, he feels the need to keep track of his mouth and his teeth like they might slip away from him if he doesn’t pay attention.

“What now?”

“Well,” Jazz draws the word out, buying time. “I was thinking we could get Mom and Dad—and Vlad, if you’re both comfortable—and sit down and talk about this?” A hurried slurp of coffee almost masks the question in her voice. Almost—but Danny can sense her uncertainty like blood in the water.

For his part, he squirms. “I…” he trails off, throat closing. Altogether avoiding this conversation would be really seriously nice right about now. “Again?”

“Not about feelings things,” Jazz clarifies, and his relief is immediate. “Just, you know, making a plan, figuring things out, all that stuff. Housekeeping.” Something close to pity flickers in her eyes, fleeting and small, but it’s enough for Danny to feel naked all over again under her scrutiny. “You said that you wanted to do that, yesterday,” she reminds him, slowly like she’s talking to somebody unstable. “Do you not want to anymore? It can wait a little while if you’d rather rest."

Can it? He draws in a shuddering breath and shrinks in the chair, gathering his legs up onto the seat. All the hairs on his neck and scalp stand on end, emotional gooseflesh rippling along his arms. A scratchy little growl slips past his teeth, less a rumble of warning and more a vain attempt at self-soothing. Glaring at his knees, Danny tries hard to swallow his nausea and make himself small. 

He _knows_ that waiting will make things harder, but if it’s such a bad idea, why did his parents—the _experts_ —make so damn sure it was his only option for such a long time? Really, it only takes a few canned responses that play to what people expect and then they do all the work for him. It would be easy—but he knows better than most that he can’t cut corners forever. 

Not talking about these things is what got him into this mess in the first place. There’s not even any point to it. They already know enough that there’s nothing left to hide, but the thought of telling everything feels like giving up. He _did_ say that, in a braver moment.

It takes an embarrassing amount of time for Danny to realize that she’s expecting a response. “No, no—yeah,” he sputters, stumbling over his tongue, “I know. I’m just tired.”

“I can tell,” says Jazz, warm and fond, but not unworried. “You should have breakfast,” she offers, and drains her mug. “It’ll make you feel better. Cereal okay?”

Danny can’t help but groan. The thought of eating anything, even regular food, is enough to make his stomach flip. Bile crawls up the back of his throat, acrid and sour, and he’d hazard a guess his throat’s just gone and closed up for good measure. Forcing something down, even if it’s light, sounds like nothing short of an ordeal. “I guess.” 

The jittery feeling in his core returns with a vengeance, pushing his otherworldly center of self to strain against the cage of his ribs. As though magnetized, he finds his gaze drawn to the paling sky outside the window. He could easily get away with bolting out, if he really tried, but his body is heavy and cumbersome, too fat and clumsy to do little more than huddle and shake.

A bowl clinks on the table at his side. Jazz pulls out a chair to sit across from him, looking hopeful. “Not my first choice of recovery fuel,” she remarks around another swig of coffee, “but it’s better than nothing.”

“Fuel” turns out to be some off-brand cinnamon toast cereal, fake and sweet enough that it might just be better to choke down a candy bar instead and call it a day. All those horrible chemical preservatives will probably land him thirty different kinds of cancer later in life, assuming the ecto-radiation doesn’t get to it first. Danny usually loves awful ‘dessert for breakfast’ foods, but having it put in front of him just makes him feel empty.

His first instinct is to point-blank refuse, but Jazz is looking at him so expectantly, so openly pleading. She wants him to eat and be healthy; that’s really not a lot to ask, he reasons. Besides, what right does Danny have to punish her thoughtfulness just because he isn’t in the mood? This is self-care, or something like that, and it’ll make her less worried. Besides, as long as his mouth is full, he has an ongoing excuse not to talk about his feelings.

The spoon is heavy in his hand, but Danny actually ends up wolfing his breakfast. Whether that’s on account of being genuinely hungry or just desperately wanting to get it over with is anyone’s guess, but he finds himself lapping up the sugary milk much sooner than expected. His unsettled stomach still feels oddly empty even when he’s done, like a big, empty, echoing room at the end of his throat. All of that fighting and forced healing must have really taken it out of him worse than he’d thought. 

Jazz arches a brow at him over her buttered toast, eyes half-lidded but only slightly smug. Normally she would be laughing about how she told him so and he should trust her judgement a little more, but this morning her satisfaction is only skin-deep, performative.

“Better?” She teases, but her tone is small and brittle.

Danny nods. His sister visibly relaxes when he goes in for a second helping, so he makes sure to fill his bowl generously. Eating isn’t pleasant, but his core hums in his chest at every small measure of stress that Jazz sheds, so he endures it for her sake. His bites are slow and small, this time interspersed with long swigs of hot black coffee to pad out the stickiness. Danny does his very best at pretending to be grumpy about being proved wrong, but they both know it’s mostly for show. It’s just a thing siblings do in regular circumstances, something he’s soundly unwilling to give up.

They spend a while in companionable silence. Danny soaks it in greedily, relishing every second. Despite everything, this is pretty close to normal—slippery and soon to be butchered by whatever unwanted reminder comes next, but it’s there. He digs his heels in and holds on to it; this is almost nice, and he wants to enjoy it while it lasts. Cinnamon clings to his teeth and the nutty bite of coffee makes the air taste warm and homey. If he closes his eyes he can pretend that nothing’s wrong or unusual at all.

“Hey,” says Jazz in the home stretch of her third cup of coffee, once Danny’s second bowl is finally empty. The low thickness in her voice means it’s leading up to something she actually means. “What do you want to do now?”

Restraining a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat, he presses his fingers to his temples and sighs. Jazz waits patiently while he mulls it over, but his head is empty, without even the slightest room for thoughts. 

“I feel like shit,” he finally says. It lacks the slapdash eloquence of a proper existential crisis, but Danny decides he’s kind of over that. “I don’t wanna be handled with kid gloves and I don’t want people—you guys—to treat me like I’m breakable. I just want things to be normal again. That’s all.”

Jazz puts her cup down on the countertop, a troubled fold deepening between her brows. She clearly wants to argue. “Is there anything that needs to happen to make sure you’re comfortable, now that Mom and Dad know? I don’t want to rush you, but it’ll be important to lay the groundwork. Establish your boundaries, especially. Something with Vlad, maybe? I still think he’s a creep, but he has the experience, and he’s willing to help us.”

“Seriously,” Danny amends, tongue fat in his mouth. “I just need some more sleep and for this all to be over and done with. Everything else we can kinda play by ear, right? Making this a big deal is just gonna make it harder. It sucks, but I’m gonna be okay.”

Some absurd mix of wired mania and lethargic exhaustion crash against each other and make him feel like he’s about to throw up. His head feels stuffed with cotton and his pulse hammers in his ears. He isn't sure he’s ever been this high-strung in his life, or whatever he has left of it, yet he still doesn’t feel quite fully awake.

“I just…” She doesn’t sound angry, just a touch frustrated, and doubtlessly scared. It’s a small blessing that she’s afraid _for_ him and not _of_ him. She glides over to dote on him a little, mug forgotten at the edge of the sink. “You don’t look so good—can I help? What do you need from me?”

Now is a truly horrible time to be having a breakdown, Danny realizes, but that’s just his luck. He would laugh if his lungs didn’t feel like wet plastic bags. Sucking in a deep breath, thick and shaky, makes him see stars. He leans against the back of the chair to try and steady himself, but it just makes him lightheaded instead, drawing yet another frustrated noise from between his teeth. 

Jazz edges a half-step closer, but doesn’t dare touch him, hesitating at a little more than arm’s length. Hoping to wind back down again, he uncurls his legs and plants his feet on the floor, which still feels oddly elastic, untrustworthy to bear even his lacking weight.

“I hate this,” he spits. “I dunno what the hell I need. I just need it.”

Jazz hesitates and doesn’t say anything, worrying her lip. “That’s okay,” she begins. “That’s normal, actually. We’ll get there.”

“If you say so.” He looks away, biting his lip, and lets her approach. Jazz, clumsy on the best of days and especially distracted on this one, knocks her hipbone against the table trying to get around it.

Danny’s eyes fly to track the movement without his consent. His pent-up core throbs and he jerks in his seat, shoving with all his mental might against the dizzying reflex to dart in and do _something_ about it. He ends up awkwardly sliding to the side in his chair because he’s too unsteady to trust himself standing, and it’s not like she’s in danger from the kitchen table—but Jazz must mistake it for a flinch because her eyes turn big and watery. 

It’s an awful feeling to be looked at like something to be pitied. 

“Are you okay?” ventures Danny.

“What? Oh, yes,” she splutters, stumbling over her tongue. “Of course. Just a bump. Are you?”

Danny waits just a second too long to lie. “Kind of,” he compromises.

Jazz sniffles a little and Danny can't look at her. She’s making a show of rubbing her side like that’s why she’s crying, but he knows better. “Pretty good start,” she says, voice tight. “These things take time,” she’s rambling. Warm fingers thread through his hair the second she can reach, and he leans into the contact despite himself. “I’ll just be here, alright? We’ll figure it out together, and it’ll be easier this time, since you won’t be alone.”

That’s a nice thought. Slowly, carefully, Danny raises his arms to wrap them around his sister. She’s snuggly but firm beneath his curled fingers, unbendingly real, and the intensity of her heartbeat is almost enough to rattle his teeth when he lays his head on her shoulder.

“I really needed a hug,” he sighs.

Jazz laughs feebly against his neck. “You really need a masseuse.” She rubs out gentle circles between his aching shoulder blades, and Danny sinks bonelessly into her touch.

Hushed vibrations ripple out from his core, settling into a low buzz of content at the back of his throat. He sits on the feeling for a long moment, taking the lull to pluck his wayward thoughts up and arrange them into something nearly coherent. The soft music of his purr peters out and Jazz loosens her grip on him, splaying her fingers lightly over the ridge of his spine.

“If I spill my guts,” he mumbles, slow and faltering, into her shoulder, “I’m not gonna be able to put ‘em back.” He wants her help, he really does. “I can’t avoid it forever and it’s just going to suck more, but I just—” Danny screws his eyes shut and bites down on his tongue until he’s tasting battery acid. “I’m so _tired_.”

Jazz cradles him, warm breath ruffling the top of his head. “I’d be more worried if you weren’t,” she huffs, real humor straining her voice. “It’s still early. Do you want to sleep a little more?”

“Not forever,” Danny promises.

“Take as long as you need. I’ll wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No promises about the next one, but it's cooking. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! There is more coming, hopefully in the near future. Please let me know what you think; it keeps me going. :)


End file.
